Skiing, San Diego, & Super Students!
February was a month filled with many highs and unfortunately, the loss of a family member, our cousin, Mitch. He passed away after a quick battle with amyloidosis, which is when your body has an over abundance of proteins that infiltrate your organs and systems. Mitch was an extremely talented musician, full of wit and full of even more love for his beautiful wife, Janet. Janet is my first cousin on my mom’s side and I know this is devastating to her. She did an incredible job of keeping family and friends notified via the Caring Bridge web page she set up in his honor. We will be visiting with her later in March to extend our condolences and meet all of those whose lives on which he made a tremendous impact.
In other, happier news, Trent enjoyed a happy hour with his exercise buddies at Woody’s, I enjoyed an amazing dinner at Kendall’s house, and Charlie was picked up by her trainers for a nice little staycation at their house to learn more tricks and commands while Trent and I took two separate trips, independent of one another. Terry and Fran came to our house and watched the girls for the first part of the week and then my mom watched them for the second part of the week. We both flew our separate ways…Trent was off to Big Sky, Montana for his annual guys’ ski trip and I was off to San Diego for a work-related conference. This was his fifth or so year of going out west and shredding it on the slopes with his F3 friends. They end up skiing over 20 miles a day and over the years have added another day onto the trip because they have such a great time together. Their modus operandi is to wake up early, have some breakfast, and be ready to get on the first chairlift up the mountain right when the slopes open. They ski until around lunch time, take a break, and then ski until the slopes close around 4:00 p.m. After that, they go back to the house and change and then head out to the brewery for a few drinks before heading back to the house for dinner and relaxing. Out of the seven days they were there, they ended up skiing five days and went snowshoeing in Yellowstone one day. He always talks about how heavenly it is out there. One day, I’ll definitely check it out, but not in February where the temperatures many times plummet below zero!
While he was skiing, I was in San Diego. I flew out there a couple days early to spend an awesome weekend with a fun four pack of girls: Stacy, Paige, and Chris. During Covid, we had a girls’ trip to Scottsdale and had the most amazing time together, so this was our opportunity to spend a few days ahead of a busy week relaxing and laughing and having a blast. When we arrived, we dropped our stuff off and then headed to grab a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant, which was followed by some manis and pedis nearby. By this time, we were full of laughter and Paige’s boyfriend even came to join us for his first pedicure! We went back to her house and got ready for a delicious dinner at Monarch, a beachfront restaurant in Del Mar. We came back to the house, played some funny games, danced a bit, and crashed. The next morning, we did a hip-hop dance workout and then grabbed the most delicious brunch at Harley Gray on our way to the conference hotel. The conference was a huge success and I had an awesome time hanging out with my fabulous coworkers. It was the best Distributech we’ve ever had and it was nice to see all of our hard work pay off.
I flew back from San Diego in time to take Hanleigh to her Valentine’s Cotillion class and then go to my monthly Selfish Club at Mary’s house, where she continued to raise the bar in terms of hosting the most perfectly themed party. It was awesome to get to know new women as well. We had a great time. On Saturday night, the girls and I took Mimi to dinner to Juniper grill and really enjoyed spending some quality time with her. Brayden babysat our neighbor, Ari, again, and Trent returned from his ski trip. We really missed him and it was great to have him back home! The next day, we got the house ready for our annual Super Bowl party and this one was definitely the biggest. I think we had about 45 people attend. It was an awesome time, as always! Everyone always contributes so well by bringing various appetizers. We even had a fun bet going during the Rihanna halftime show where you had to guess six songs that she would sing and everyone put in $10. This actually was a lot harder than you can imagine because she has so many hits. The girls got their quarterly report cards and both of them are such incredible students. Straight As for the most part. Way to go, ladies! We couldn’t be more proud!
Trent enjoyed a nice neuromuscular massage and we met once again with our travel agent, Shannon, to keep planning our trip to Greece. It’s all coming together very nicely! I had yet another work trip, but before I went to it, I made a pit stop in Naples to visit Leslie for the weekend. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to wait until this fall to see her, so it was great that I was able to bolt this on to my other trip. I went to dinner with her family on Friday night, then we went shopping on Saturday and she treated me to a massage, which was extremely relaxing. Les, you are the best! We had a delicious charcuterie board and some of Joe’s famous margaritas for dinner and then had a fun dance party in their kitchen later that night. The next day, Leslie, Emilia, and I spent a couple hours at the beach, stumbled upon a new awesome hangout spot with delicious painkillers, and then the adults went out to dinner to a scrumptious Italian place in downtown Naples. It was the perfect weekend. While I was visiting her, Trent took the girls to a Charlotte FC soccer game, which was awesome. He’s such a fabulous dad!
On Monday, Leslie dropped me off at the airport so I could continue on to Houston for the work week. This was for our annual sales kickoff meeting where we learn about our solutions and then the sales teams engage in role-playing exercises to better prepare them in selling to our customers. I was a big part of managing and organizing these activities. The agendas are typically pretty intense, but we do have some time for teambuilding and this time, we went to Topgolf. I had never been before and it was really fun! The next night, we had our awards gala where the top sales people are recognized for all their hard work. It’s always nice to have an excuse to get all dressed up! However, later that evening, I went back to my room and was locked out and waited for the hotel to help me out for about an hour or more. Long story short, I ended up spending the night in a different hotel room and didn’t get access into my room until the next morning. Not the best experience, but all is good. I returned from Houston just in time so that our whole family could go over to the Buford’s house to celebrate Nash’s sixth birthday with a fun party.
Later that weekend, Hanleigh spent the night at her best friend’s (Sam) house and Trent and I had a great date night at Saku Yakitori where we enjoyed delicious sushi and finalized our spring break plans! The next evening, I went to Juniper Grill with Heather and Tonya for our monthly “blue-haired girls” dinner. The month wrapped up with my annual physical, where everything looked really good with the exception of my A1C levels, which I will work on lowering.
